October, 2015 - The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Group and the World Bank Group have announced a historic strategic partnership agreement to significantly scale-up joint work and investment across the 56 IDB Group member countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and South America that are also members of the World Bank.

The two leading development finance institutions expect co-financing work to reach $9 billion over the next 3 years. Joint work will support infrastructure services, regional integration and cross-border trade facilitation, water and food security, education and employment, and Islamic finance.

The IDB Group and the World Bank Group also agreed to join forces to support private sector development and entrepreneurship in common member countries, as well as support to the growing number of fragile and conflict-affected countries.

This historic agreement comes on the heels of a joint initiative launched by the World Bank Group President, the United Nations Secretary General and the IDB Group President at an international gathering of donors held on 10 October 2015 in Lima, Peru, where a number of donor countries agreed to scale-up financial support to Arab countries going through transition and unrest.

The partnership agreement was signed by IDB Group President, Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali and World Bank Group President, Jim Yong Kim. "Our new partnership is a natural evolution in our long-standing relationship with the World Bank Group and is most timely given the growing challenges facing our member countries", said Dr. Ali.

The partnership agreement stems from a shared commitment by both institutions to reducing poverty, boosting shared prosperity, fostering economic development, and promoting social progress across their common membership and beyond, and to supporting the recently adopted United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

"We have definitely set for ourselves an ambitious partnership agenda because business-as-usual is not really an option. I am highly confident that both institutions will work diligently to deliver on development promises building on each other's comparative advantages and strengths to unleashing the synergy that this strategic partnership can bring to our member countries", observed Dr. Ali during the signing ceremony held at the World Bank Group headquarters in Washington DC in presence of the
senior management and officials from both institutions.

Past co-financing between the IDB Group and the World Bank Group totaled over US $7 billion and targeted 72 projects, primarily the infrastructure sector, in 26 common member countries in Africa and Asia.